Jugnu Mohsin

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Introduction

By Bob Dietz

At least 42 journalists have been killed—23 of them murdered—in direct relation to their work in Pakistan in the past decade, CPJ research shows. Not one murder since 2003 has been solved, not a single conviction won. Despite repeated demands from Pakistani and international journalist organizations, not one of these crimes has even been put to a credible trial.

3. Intimidation, Manipulation, and Retribution

A couple of years ago, Hamid Mir, Najam Sethi, Umar Cheema, and other prominent figures in the news media began going public with the threats they were receiving from intelligence agencies. It was a risky calculation, but the silence, they reasoned, encouraged intimidation and allowed impunity to persist.

The Friday Times
in Lahore has come under cyberattack. Earlier Friday, its website could not be accessed.

Najam Sethi,
the paper's editor, told CPJ that someone has "launched an attack on the
websites of both The Friday Times and
Vanguard Books [the book publishing
and distribution company that owns the Times].
A tsunami of killer spams and log-ins have clogged the sites and blocked them."

We
released a statement Thursday--CPJ
supports Pakistani journalists facing threats--about the decision of two
Pakistani journalists to publicly announce the threats they had been receiving.
Najam Sethi, editor of The Friday Timesand host
of a popular Urdu-language political program on Geo TV, and Jugnu
Mohsin, also a Friday Times editor, said
they had lived under threat for years but the level of danger had become so
menacing in early 2011 that they were forced to leave Pakistan. A few months
later, the two went public with the threats. Then, on Thursday, Sethi told us
that he and Mohsin had decided to return to Lahore on Friday.

New York, December 29, 2011--The Committee to Protect Journalists admires and supports the decision of Pakistani journalists Najam Sethi and Jugnu Mohsin to make public the threats that have driven them at times to live outside their country in recent months. Sethi and Mohsin are returning to their home in Lahore and are determined to continue their independent work in the media. They, like other journalists in Pakistan in recent weeks, have opted to openly confront those making the threats, which have come from both state and non-state actors.

Tags:

Pakistani
journalist Najam Sethi was in the United States last week to talk about the
challenges facing his country at a critical moment. Ever the contrarian, he
also sees opportunities. "For the first time the media is challenging the
military," he told an audience of friends and colleagues at CPJ offices in New
York. "That's the biggest positive development out of the whole Pakistan
debacle."

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Former Prime Minister Muhammad Nawaz Sharif's efforts to muzzle the press, and bring the legislative, judicial, and executive branches of government under his personal control, earned him the reputation of a tyrant and badly discredited Pakistan's democracy. His slide toward authoritarianism ended abruptly with a bloodless coup on October 12, in which army chief Gen. Pervez Musharraf took power. General Musharraf immediately declared himself "a firm believer in the freedom of the press," but made a sobering reference to the press's duty to "play a positive and constructive role." (See special report: "Pakistan: The Press for Change.)

New York, Feb. 14, 2000---When the democratically elected leader of Pakistan, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, was deposed last October by a military coup, few independent journalists regretted his sudden departure. Now, in a special report released today, the Committee to Protect Journalists details the brutal tactics used by the Sharif administration to curb dissent and explains why many journalists felt that democracy in Pakistan was endangered long before the coup. The report also raises concerns about the future of press freedom in Pakistan under the military regime of Gen. Pervez Musharraf, despite his promises to respect civil liberties.